Change Your Brain Every Day - What’s the Difference Between Inattentive ADD & Overfocused ADD?

Episode Date: February 13, 2019

In continuation of a series on defining the 7 types of ADD, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the symptoms and characteristics of Inattentive ADD and Overfocused ADD. Knowing exactly which type of ADD is crucial to help you determine the appropriate treatment and interventions to make. The Amens help you to evaluate whether you or your child has these types of ADD, and if so, what to do about it.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We are having an ADD podcast. We're talking about ADD types at work, at home, and at school. We've talked about type 1, but we didn't talk about how to fix it or how to treat it. We will in just a second.

This is from Hulet House. Wow. What a wealth of complimentary information, motivation, and encouragement to live your best life. Dr. Daniel and Tana Amen generously share an abundance of resources to both point you in the right direction and keep you on the path. Aw, thank you. That's exactly what we do. And for so many people who have ADD, we hope they find this fun and empowering. And I love the story of you and your sister that when she was acting up, what you did, besides scare the heck out of her, was immediately place boundaries on what was acceptable and what

wasn't. And the consequences of it were painful in that she loved you and wanted to spend time with you and realized if she was going to do that, you would only tolerate good behavior. And by increasing her anxiety, you actually helped her behave better. Oh, so her parents yelling at her stimulated her but didn't increase her anxiety in an effective way. Correct. Is what you're saying. Right.

That they were. Because she's used to that. Ineffective. Right. At doing that. And screaming is an ineffective way of stimulating people who have ADD. In fact, I teach all of my patients don't yell. Because if you yell, they're going to make you yell again.

They actually get addicted to the conflict. patients don't yell because if you yell they're gonna make you yell again they actually get addicted to the conflict so one it's bad for the parents who are yelling because they end up feeling guilty and because they get feel guilty they go into a cycle of guilt so which is I yelled I feel bad therefore I let behavior I let them do bad behavior or I don't deal with it because I feel bad that I'd exploded. And then they do more bad behavior and you don't deal with it. And then they do more bad behavior and then you scream or you beat them. And the idea is stop screaming, but consequences- Have to be big.

Well, they just need to be significant, depending on the age. Right, that's what I mean. Significant's a better word. Depending on the age. And it fits perfectly with what we talked about with Jim Fay on parenting with love and logic, that I don't do things for people who aren't nice to me. And you modeled that perfectly with your sister. She's acting up. Yeah, I maybe could have done it a little more maturely if I had been older and had some practice.

But you were 21. And you reacted in the moment. So people have classic ADD, they have sleepy frontal lobes, and stimulating those either with a higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet, with stimulating supplements like rhodiola, l-tyrosine, ginseng, or using stimulants like Adderall, Vyvanse, Concern, I'm actually a huge fan of those for the right brain. You're going to see in a little bit, it's clearly not right for everybody. And people just do so much better when you balance their brain. But they also do better in jobs they love. So they do better as emergency room doctors.

I've actually not met one classic ADD dermatologist. Yeah, to me the idea is... There's no stimulation in rashes or pimples. The idea of sitting in a cubicle, like, oh my gosh. Which is interesting, I became a writer later, but I think it's because I loved the idea of being a mom so much. So I learned how to channel that energy and do other things like martial arts to stimulate myself instead of, you know,

but sitting for long periods of time doesn't typically. And what do you say your therapy is hitting things? Right. Oh, it's the best. It's just the best. All right. So that's classic ADD. And so in boys diagnosed early in school, they're often troublemakers. They're pushing against authority. Although people would say I have that. Yeah, I was going to say. And at work, they have trouble sitting still. They often make great salespeople because they go from thing to thing.

Oh, my gosh. My mother, you could say no to her 25 times. It's like she has Teflon on. She doesn't even hear you. Doesn't hear you. She's going to get that sale. But doing their paperwork, the IRS loves these people because they pay fines, which is why if you have classic ADD at work, they do because of the impulsivity. If you have classic ADD, it's really great to have, and you run a business, it's great to hire an executive secretary that does not have ADD, has a little OCD that will follow through for you.

And then, and this has been described a long time, it wasn't me, inattentive ADD. So short attention span, distractibility, disorganized, but they tend, where classic ADDers tend to be more extroverted, inattentive ADD tend to be more introverted. They have excessive daydreaming. They're not hyperactive and said they may be a little hypoactive. And, you know, sometimes described as sort of a slug with little motivation. And it impacts girls more than boys. They still have this low activity in their brain. But they get diagnosed way less. Because they're not noticed.

Because they are not troublemakers. Although the classic ADD in girls, this is how you diagnose it. They're teenagers, and they fall in love. So they get the dopamine from falling in love. And that wears off after two weeks. And then they start fighting with the person they're attached to because they're getting dopamine from fighting. And the other person gets tired of that. So they break up. And then there's all this drama around breaking up. And then two weeks later, they find another guy or another girl and there's the stimulation

from falling in love and then they fight and then they break up. And if this is happening three, four, ten times a year, that really is one of the indications of ADD. It's like anybody who's just like next, they should be screened. Yeah, that's actually a pretty unhealthy cycle you want to start paying attention to. Right. And you've seen that among a number of your friends. I've seen that among a number of Chloe's friends already.

All right. Inattentive ADD, we treat it the same way. We use stimulants or stimulating supplements, a higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet. One of the best ways to treat ADD is intense exercise. And often, I remember I treated this attorney who had ADD and his office was just a mess and his assistant had ADD too. So it was not a good combination. But he had to exercise every day for a couple of hours. So? There's actually a brand new study. You don't know this. I just read it. Brand new study.

The perfect amount of exercise is about 60 minutes a day. For women who exercise more than that, there's not a longevity benefit. It actually goes the other way. Now I do an hour. Because it's too much stress. Now I do an hour. But I used to do two. Because it's too much stress.

But a lot of people use exercise to either treat their depression or to treat their ADD. So when they get hurt, their life just falls apart because they're not medicating with the serotonin and dopamine and the endorphins that you get from exercise. I completely panicked when I got thyroid cancer and I had surgery. I panicked. That's how I knew there was something going on. So the inattentive ADD people at work, they're not getting stuff done. Or it's still at the last minute. And it really can negatively affect them and it can negatively affect their team.

Type 3 is what we call over-focused ADD. We have too much activity in a part of the frontal lobes called the anterior cingulate gyrus. It's the brain's gear shifter. And then low frontal lobes in another part. And so they have traits of being impulsive and distracted and compulsive. so these are the people who have the ADD symptoms plus they're worried rigid inflexible if things don't go their way they tend to get upset they're argumentative they hold grudges they often get diagnosed as having oppositional defiant disorder so So I always joke with Caitlin, her first word was no,

her first short phrase was no way, and her first long sentence was you can't make me do it. So it's like classic. We see over-focused ADD in children and grandchildren of alcoholics. So if there's a significant alcohol or drug history in your family history, they often medicate themselves with alcohol

to calm down their busy front lobes. But doesn't exercise also, don't these people also gravitate? They do, and it's perfect for them because exercise boosts serotonin. And dopamine. Dopamine. But they also can struggle with obesity

because sugar boosts serotonin. And comfort foods are common. Yes. And at work, these are the people that no matter what it is you say to them, they argue with you. And the sort of dog with a bone thing, and they won't let it go, even though it's in their best interest to let it go.

So we want you to be persistent and assertive, but also in a way that takes into consideration the feelings of other people. And so this type does, well, actually one of my first books I wrote, 1994, it's called Healing the Chaos Within. It's about children and grandchildren of alcoholics and how interventions to raise both serotonin and dopamine transform their lives in a good way. So it used to be Prozac and Ritalin. It was just miraculous for some of them.

And then, you know, since I went to more natural treatments, we'll use 5-HTP and saffron to boost serotonin and rhodiola and ginseng to help boost dopamine. Interesting. And exercise is amazingly helpful. Now, they do better with a balanced diet. Type 1 and type 2 do better with a paleo diet or Atkins diet, a higher protein, lower carbohydrate diet.

This type, you actually make them mean. So interesting. Chloe does not have ADD. If anything, she's kind of the opposite of ADD. She's a little more on the anxious side. And over-focused. She tried to do, at one point, she wanted to do the ketogenic diet. She thought it would help her focus with school.

She, her anxiety, just, oh my gosh. It was so hard to turn it off, so hard to get her to just settle down with anything. And her rigidity. Oh, dear Lord. So we figured out she needs more carbs, healthy carbs. Healthy carbs. Yeah. All right.

Stay with us. We're going to talk about four, five, six, and seven coming up. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warrior's Way and the Brain Warrior's Way cookbook we give away every month.